Andrew Wojteczko's racing team enters its first 24 Hours of Le Mans being viewed through a similar lens to when they showed up at the Rolex 24 At Daytona only five months ago.
Perhaps, individually, not considered as proven as some of their peers, but as a collective, more than capable of turning in something special.

Just like they did in Daytona this year when they won the GTD class. Or last year, when AWA's ever-present Bronze driver Orey Fidani won the IMSA Bob Akin Award as the top true amateur GTD driver for the full season. And two years before that, when they won LMP3.

As Wojteczko himself puts it: There's no question, it was a really difficult beginning with the way the car rolled out a year ago at Daytona.
So to come back and win it this year was a huge accomplishment, and I think, a great validation for all the people involved in the program.
"I think Daytona was a great showing of just how hard everyone's been working to get there, within AWA, PME and GM."

It's the pinnacle of a journey that began less than eight years ago when Wojteczko broke away from managing Anthony Mantella's Pirelli World Challenge team to set up Andrew Wojteczko Autosport, or AWA, as it's usually known, for the 2018 season.

Within a year, the upstart team that began with a single Ford Mustang GT4 had graduated to the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge paddock, eventually finding a groove with a McLaren 570S GT4. By 2022, AWA had moved up to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in LMP3.
And not long after winning LMP3 at Daytona with their Duqueine D08, AWA became one of Chevrolet and Corvette Racing's first batch of customers for the new Corvette Z06 GT3.R, the automaker's first earnest attempt to support privateer GT racing.

If you want to stretch the tale out even further, almost 20 years ago Andrew was working for his father's company, Auto Analyzer Services Inc., repairing automotive electronics during the day while wrenching and engineering a Lexus IS 300 touring car in the evenings, which he raced, and won in, in the late 2000s across the United States and Canada.

And now, Wojteczko is here as the owner and namesake of one of Le Mans' more intriguing LMGT3 class dark horses.
Not one with the pedigree of WEC's established GT powerhouses like WRT, Manthey, and AF Corse, but an entry that shouldn't be dismissed as a factor come Saturday and Sunday.

As it's been for almost every IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup race since AWA stepped up to the big time in 2022, the line-up features Fidani, it features Nürburgring 24 Hour race veteran Lars Kern, and it features England's Matthew Bell, who's enjoying an outstanding 2025 season driving not only for AWA, but also for fellow Corvette Racing customer DXDT Racing in GT World Challenge America.

Wojteczko is proud of the fellowship of his three drivers, saying, "I think it's quite unique in the paddock.
There's huge loyalty amongst the group. Orey's made commitments to both Matt and Lars to do this together. That's been awesome."

Bell has driven this race before, while Fidani and Kern are Le Mans rookies, but not newcomers to the Circuit de la Sarthe.
As it became apparent that Fidani had a chance to win the Akin Award, a one-off Road to Le Mans entry was executed last year to familiarize both drivers with the track in the event that Fidani won the prize.

"That was our objective for last year," Wojteczko recalls. "And then we knew that the experience last year at Le Mans, even in the support series, would be a huge help coming into Le Mans this year. So we took a chance on it, got out there, and got some experience."

That foresight was rewarded. Fidani retired from the season-opening race at Daytona but was consistent for the rest of the year, as he overhauled the presumptive favorite Iribe, last year's Le Mans pole sitter, to take the Akin Award and a 'golden ticket' to Le Mans.

"I'm really grateful that Orey has given us the opportunity to bring everybody that helped him achieve the Akin win. He wanted to come and experience this as a team. So we're really grateful for that," Wojteczko said.

Fidani has a real opportunity to make history if he and AWA were somehow to win on debut, and join Ron Fellows as the only other Canadian driver to win any major class at Le Mans in its history.
You'll recall that countryman Paul Dalla Lana came oh-so-close to winning GTE Am many times, in particular 2015, when he went off course with an hour to go and lost the win.

Fidani, Bell, Kern, and AWA simply hope to be in that position. But they'll have help getting there. Not only will 25 AWA Team members be at Le Mans, but AWA will also receive assistance from TF Sport, Corvette's full-time WEC client which has also had a major breakthrough after winning the 2025 Qatar 1812KM just a month after AWA won Daytona.

AWA's Daytona win also created an unforeseen problem, but a good problem to have: The Corvette Z06 GT3.R that won Daytona has now been retired. What would have been AWA's Le Mans car is now in service as their primary IMSA car, and chassis 022 was built and commissioned for Le Mans, with no supply headaches stemming from Hiroshi Koizumi's testing crash at Spa earlier this year.

It puts AWA in a decent position to contend for Corvette's 10th GT class win at Le Mans in the modern era, which would be the first for the Z06 GT3.R and the first for a privateer team.

“I’m just soaking it in,” Fidani said to RACER during scrutineering. “I got a little bit of a taste last year, but I wasn’t really involved, more from the outside. And I mean, it’s just… it’s just like nowhere else, this place is absolutely amazing, and my head is on a swivel.
“It’s been a fun ride to this point but a lot of work. I mean, non-stop work. I think we’re very well sorte, and we’ll have a good effort to aim at trying hard to take a win or a podium here.

“It’s a long shot, but we’re ready. I think. And hopefully we get to come back next year too, because it looks like back home, we have a good shot at taking the Akin again. But for now, I am just going to soak it all in and have a good time.”